The meeting has been called to give formal approval to the agreement, struck between the UK and the EU earlier this month, laying out the terms of the UK's departure from the 28-nation bloc.
Down-to-the-wire talks Saturday evening with the EU's top officials are expected to address Spanish concerns over the thorny issue of Gibraltar, the tiny British territory on the Iberian Peninsula.
Madrid is demanding written commitments from London about the territory's future status in negotiations between the EU and the UK.
Nothing in the tortured 17-month withdrawal process since the UK voted to leave the EU in June 2016 has gone smoothly, and the contested rock of Gibraltar is just the latest snag.
At the moment the border between Spain and Gibralter is an open one, but the Spanish government is concerned that would change after Brexit, affecting future trade negotiations. Spain joined the EU in 1986, 13 years after the UK, and one of the conditions of its accession treaty was a clause that agreed to the British sovereignty over the outcrop with a population of 30,000.
On Thursday, Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, tweeting from Cuba, showed no sign of reconciliation.
"After my conversation with Theresa May, our positions remain far away," he wrote in English. "My Government will always defend the interests of Spain. If there are no changes, we will veto Brexit."
He insists Madrid must be allowed to negotiate directly with London on Gibraltar and give its specific assent to any changes to its relationship to the EU in a future agreement between Britain and Brussels. "There aren't sufficient guarantees and therefore Spain maintains a veto over the Brexit agreement," he was reported as saying in El Pais newspaper Saturday.
Under EU rules, the Brexit treaty must be approved by a "strong qualified majority" of the 27 remaining nations. Even though Spain cannot formally veto the legally binding part of the agreements, other EU governments would be reluctant to adopt it without a consensus.
Sanchez, a socialist, is under pressure over Gibraltar because of regional elections in the southern Spanish province of Andalusia next month, where the center-right has been campaigning on the territory's status.
May is due in Brussels later on Saturday to meet with the President of the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, Jean-Claude Juncker,and EU Council president Donald Tusk, whose institution represents the member states.
"If this deal does not go through, we are back at square one. What we end up with is more division and more uncertainty," Theresa May warned.
She has declined to comment on whether she would resign as prime minister of the deal does not go through.
Even if the agreement is approved by EU leaders on Sunday, it will still need to be voted through the UK Parliament, a ballot that is far from secured for May.
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